Steve Cooley

Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Cooley (1 May 1947-) was the Los Angeles County District Attorney from 4 December 2000 to 3 December 2012, succeeding Gil Garcetti and preceding Jackie Lacey. A Republican in a predominantly Democratic county, he was defeated in his run for California Attorney General by Kamala Harris in 2010.

Biography
Stephen Lawrence Cooley was born in Los Angeles, California in 1947, and he served over seven years as a reserve LAPD police officer and 27 years as a prosecutor. In 1996, he began a rivalry with Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti when Cooley supported Garcetti's rival, and Cooley himself would defeat Garcetti for re-election in 2000. He supported proportional punishment instead of the three-strikes rule, unsuccessfully prosecuted suspected murderer and actor Robert Blake (calling the jury "incredibly stupid" after they found him not guilty), aggressively prosecuted political corruption, and opposed over-the-counter medicinal marijuana sales. In 2010, he ran for California Attorney General and supported a state bill which would continue to ban gay marriages, and he narrowly lost the election to Democrat Kamala Harris.